BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: ab 1627
SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: gomez
VERSION: 5/6/14
Analysis by: Carrie Cornwell FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: June 10, 2014
SUBJECT:
Vehicle registration services: disclosure of fees
DESCRIPTION:
This bill requires a business that is licensed by the Department
of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to provide vehicle registration services
to disclose to its customers that they could register their
vehicles directly with DMV without paying the business's
additional fee.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law prohibits a person from driving, moving, or parking
a motor vehicle on the highway or in a public parking facility
unless it is registered with DMV. Registering a vehicle or
renewing a vehicle registration is an easy process that a
vehicle owner can typically complete quickly on the DMV's
website by providing the vehicle's license plate number and
paying annual taxes and fees associated with registration.
A registration service is a business that for compensation
processes vehicle registration and related documents, including
transmitting them to DMV. DMV licenses and regulates vehicle
registration services. In order for a business to act as a
registration service, it must obtain a license or temporary
permit from DMV by filing an application, submitting to a
background check and inspection of its place of business,
posting a surety bond, and paying a one-time fee of $150 and
annual renewal fees of $15.
This bill requires every registration service to disclose to
each customer in writing at its place of business and in a
conspicuous place on its Internet website that the vehicle
registration services it provides are provided by DMV without an
additional fee.
AB 1627 (GOMEZ) Page 2
COMMENTS:
Purpose . If a person uses a web search engine to find the DMV's
website or simply searches for "vehicle registration," the top
results of the search will be a private registration service and
not the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The author
points out that many who search for the site on which to renew
their vehicles' registration mistakenly believe that the first
website listed is the official page of the California DMV. He
reports that licensed registration services may and do pay
Google and other search engines to be at the top of those search
engine results. While licensed registration services disclose
on their respective online websites and places of business that
the business is not a branch of the California DMV, this
disclosure is typically at the bottom of the page in small
print, where many online customers often do not see the
disclosure. Customers may then go through the registration
process through this third party service provider and be charged
a fee for the performance of the service, which they could
receive without charge on the DMV website.
The author introduced this bill to inform California vehicle
owners that they have other options available to them when
selecting a registration service provider. Without the
disclosure required by this bill, many customers may be misled
to believe that a registration service licensed by DMV is
actually the DMV itself. At this point a customer may pay extra
fees for a service that DMV offers at no additional cost. This
bill requires these registration services to inform their
potential customers that they could receive these same services
free of charge from the DMV in order to prevent them from being
misled and misinformed.
Assembly Votes:
Floor: 73-0
Appr: 17-0
Trans: 16-0
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on
Wednesday, June 4,
2014.)
SUPPORT: None received.
OPPOSED: None received.
AB 1627 (GOMEZ) Page 3